


just across the lawn

by miss_tatiana



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Genre: Just. Fluff, M/M, a little bit of hurt/comfort, but like . sad when you put it in context, happy ending !, lots of talking about feelings, thats all it is, this is sort of a fix it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 18:56:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14408430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_tatiana/pseuds/miss_tatiana
Summary: “This is five years,” he said slowly, gesturing to the room around us. “I waited five years and it took me just one night to realize she wasn’t going to flick the light on.”“I don’t follow.”-au where jay realizes he loves nick instead of daisy before it's too late





	just across the lawn

**Author's Note:**

> i just totally went for it on this one and wrote it like it was part of the book so like,, enjoy that good good first person i guess

He waited all night for a light in Daisy’s window, and although I tried to sleep I found myself waiting too, for him to return. It was early in the morning when I head the tires of his car scrape through the gravel of his driveway, and I pulled myself out of my desk chair to go greet him. A consultation with my watch informed me that it was three thirty in the morning. 

I went across the lawn, the dew sitting on the grass soaking into my shoes. I caught myself trying to be silent, as if I were Daisy, hiding signs of life from Tom across the Sound. I was going to knock but he met me at the door, opening it just as I reached it. 

He looked worn through, a ghost of his smile of smiles quickly passing over his face before falling away. He made a gesture instead of speaking. 

I stepped inside. His house, normally alight from a hundred places and bustling with a hundred people, was dark and empty. “I take it she didn’t signal?” I asked, hoping it wouldn’t be insensitive. 

“Of course she didn’t.” His voice was hollow. “It doesn’t matter.” He sounded like he was almost hoping Tom had tried something. 

“I’m glad she’s safe,” I said, as a reminder that no light was good. 

He sighed and turned his soldiers’ eyes on me like he was seeing me for the first time all night. “What are you doing here now? It’s four in the morning.”

“I had what happened stuck in my head, I couldn’t sleep,” I told him. We were still standing in the entrance hall in a fashion that was becoming uncomfortable. “I knew you were staying up, so I figured I’d wait for you to get home.” 

He nodded.

It struck me that he might want to be alone, so I added, “I can go, if you’d like.” 

“No, please.” A touch of his old charm appeared, only to leave a second later. “You’re always welcome here, you know that.”

I studied him. “Jay, is everything alright?” To make the question carry less weight, I bent down and began taking off my shoes. They were damp, and he wouldn’t appreciate mud on his carpet. 

He waited until I’d straightened up and kicked the shoes aside to say, “I’ve had a long night of thinking. A man shouldn’t be left to think for that long.”

“Right,” I agreed, pulling off my jacket as well. I wished I’d kept it on the moment I set it down on a hook by the door, because it was a cold night for summer, and the house was large and empty. “Should we go inside?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, touching his forehead briefly. “I’m sorry, old sport. Here I am, letting you just stand out here in the hall. My mind is on other things, clearly.” 

“What sort of things?” I followed him through many dark living rooms with similar furnishing until he’d settled on one. To me, it looked just like the last few. 

He shook his head instead of answering, and turn on a lamp. It wasn’t quite enough light to fill the whole room, instead casting a candle-like glow around the little table it stood on. 

I sat on the leather sofa in the middle of the room, and watched him pace around, take a seat on a chair by the door for a moment, and finally join me on the sofa. I waited a minute to make sure he wasn’t going to say anything before asking, “What did you think about over there?” It was clear to me that he was trying to come up with a way to address it, but hadn’t found one yet. 

“This is five years,” he said slowly, gesturing to the room around us. “I waited five years and it took me just one night to realize she wasn’t going to flick the light on.” 

“I don’t follow.” 

“I stood and waited for hours,” he continued, his voice straying towards sentimental. A dangerous territory, for him. “And it struck me that if she wanted to be the person I wanted her to be, she’d have flicked the light on even if Tom wasn’t putting her in danger. I’d have come in and picked her up and carried her home here and that would be that. But I think she’s not that person, the person I’m… she’s not.” 

I didn’t know what to tell him. I wished he would shake it off and smile, like he would if we were discussing any other topic. After too long a silence, I tried, “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be.” He looked at me hard. “No, don’t be. You’ve been nothing but good to me.” 

“I’m still sorry it’s not panning out like you wanted it to,” I told him. 

“Did I want that?”

“You must have, you went through all that trouble.” 

He sighed again. 

“Do you want something to drink?” I offered. I didn’t like seeing him like this. 

“You’ve been here the whole time,” he said, like he hadn’t heard me. He rested his chin on his hand, the look in his eyes bordering on distant. He added, “You’d flick the light on.” 

“I don’t know about that,” I said, because I wasn’t going to risk telling him that I absolutely would. “I wouldn’t marry Tom in the first place.” I hoped that would diffuse the tension a little, and I laughed for a moment before realizing it wasn’t catching on. 

“All that time, all that money, chasing a phantom,” he murmured, looking unsettled, “when you’ve been just across the lawn. I could’ve…” 

“You- me-?” I spluttered, making what I’m certain was a flustered, unrefined picture. I wasn’t sure of what he was saying, so used to taking his words out of context so I could hold onto them dearly. 

He folded his arms, looked off at the lamp for a moment before his eyes came back to me. “I think- I’ve been after the wrong cousin.” He huffed a singular laugh, then stared some more, then began to cry. 

I was scared to touch him. I watched him press a hand into his eyes, I watched his shoulders shake. After a few minutes, I pulled out my handkerchief and passed it to him. 

He nodded as he took it, and covered his face with it. He straightened up, let out a long, unsteady breath. When he passed me my handkerchief back, his eyes were dry, and red. 

I took too much time folding it and putting it back in my pocket because I was worried I’d misinterpreted his words, however impossible that would be, and was nervous to say anything back. It frightened me, too, when he let his guard down, so I didn’t have anything ready to say about that. 

He knew I was watching him, and he shook his head. Then he shrugged, and shook his head again. 

I hated that he couldn't talk. I never wanted to see him when he was out of words to say, and it was getting painful. I was in the same boat, I couldn’t think of anything to tell him, and seconds of silence were ticking by and I took his face in my hands and pressed a kiss to his lips. It was just a few seconds - not even - but my chest felt too tight to breathe. 

He didn’t move when I let him go, and I felt him draw a breath against me, his mouth still almost on mine. He leaned closer to me, removing the space between us. 

I kissed him again and again and again, my hands straying to his shoulder, to his hair. When I leaned back and got a look at him in the dim lamplight, he was wearing the smile he had on the first time I saw him, the smile that made me fall in love with him. I couldn’t hear a thing beyond the beating of my heart. 

He looked happy, really happy, for the first time in a while, and awed, which made me feel a bit guilty. “My god,” he murmured. 

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I wasn’t an expert in the art of intoxication, but it certainly felt to me like I’d had a drink. My body was warm, and I couldn’t think entirely straight. 

“You care for me like that?” he asked, putting his hand on my shoulder. 

“How couldn’t I?” I replied, and I was right, I shouldn’t have spoken, because my voice was unsteady. And- god, he shouldn’t have to ask that question. There was no way he didn’t already know. 

He laughed his beautiful entertainers’ laugh and pulled me close to him, putting his forehead against mine. “So this is what it feels like,” he said softly. 

“What?” I asked, holding onto his lapels. I was suddenly worried I’d fallen asleep at my desk, and I’d wake up from this at any moment. 

“To have someone notice, to have someone care,” he said, and he sounded like he was in complete disbelief. 

“Of course I care.” I held a hand to his cheek. I couldn’t stop touching him, I was realizing. I wasn't sure what I’d do when I had to. “You know that I love you, don’t you?”

He let me go and sat back to look at me. His smile was gone, and his face was unreadable. He finally asked, “Me?”

“Yes, Jay,” I said, and it hurt to think about. I wished I could go back into his past and change whatever was making him so doubtful. “Who do you think I tolerate this place for?”

“You don’t like parties?” He looked surprised, although even he knew that they were all Long Island had going for it. 

“Not entirely,” I confessed. “And I’m not overly fond of drinking, either.” 

“I’ll remember that,” he promised. “I’ll stop hosting the damn things, I’ll-” 

“No,” I said, perhaps too quickly. “No, don’t change because of me, and please don’t change for me.” I took his hand. “I don’t want to be Daisy.” 

He looked down. “Then what do you want?”

“Nothing.” I gave him a smile. “Well, you. But as you are now, you don’t need to change anything for me.” 

“Why not?” He looked almost confused. 

I shook my head. “Because I’m already yours.” My face burned, and I hid it on his shoulder, leaning into him. I felt his hands tighten in the fabric of my shirt. I would have stayed there forever, if I could have. 

“Oh,” he said simply. After a minute, he let go of my shirt. “It’s four in the morning, old-” He stopped. “-Nick. Would you like me to walk you home? You’ll only get a few hours of sleep before the sun rises, which I’m sorry for, but you should have them rather than not.”

“I think I’ll take them here, if it’s all the same to you,” I said, wanting to stay with him, if only for those few hours, more than anything. 

He froze for a second before nodding firmly. “Right, right- I’ll make sure I have a bed made up for you somewhere-”

“Jay.” My hand was on his chest now. Again- it was impossible to stop touching him. “I’ll have them with you, please.” 

“Oh.” A smile graced his lips. “Of course.” He took my hand and held it like it was fragile. “Where do you want-”

“Here is fine,” I said quickly. I didn’t want to put him through any trouble, and honestly if I went any further into the house I wouldn’t remember the way to the door. 

“I don’t want it to be fine, I want it to be-” He stopped himself and looked off at something across the room. 

“Here’s wonderful,” I amended, and when he still didn’t smile I kissed his check, and then he did. 

He got up and switched off the lamp before pulling the curtains closed over the windows, because the sky outside was beginning to lighten. 

I still wasn’t sure this was reality. It felt real, and I was tired, which I wasn’t sure I could be if I were dreaming, but it was too ideal. I watched him glance through the curtains and out across the Sound. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” He turned from the window, flashed me that smile again. “No, I just used to see- I don’t know, I can’t make it out now. It’s-” He stopped and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

I nodded slowly, not quite sure what he was on about. If he said it didn’t matter, though, it didn’t matter. I watched him leave the window and come over to me, sitting down where he’d gotten up from. 

“What time is it?”

I looked down at my watch. “Four thirty-two.” 

“God, we should be asleep.”

“We should,” I echoed. I laid down and pulled him down next to me. There wasn’t an awful lot of room as it was a sofa only a little larger than the average, but all that meant was we were close, which I didn’t mind at all. 

“Goodnight,” he whispered, which I found funny because it was morning. 

I said it back, though, and even though I was on a cold leather couch with no space and no blanket, I went to sleep the happiest I ever had. 

**Author's Note:**

> he literally dies that day idk why i did this now im sad


End file.
